Talk to Laurie or Kim about details of Listening Programs for your child. A Listening Evaluation can be done at any time to determine if adding this program would be beneficial to your child’s therapy services.
The Lotus Tree currently offers:
- The Listening Program
Utilizing specially modified CDs which can be used within treatment sessions and carried over in a home program.
The use of auditory interventions as a therapeutic tool (also called sound therapy) has grown significantly. These music based programs facilitate sensory processing by impacting the auditory and vestibular sensory systems.
Clinical outcomes following a sound therapy program can include improved:
- self regulation
- attention
- communication
- temporal-spatial organization
- motor control
- visual motor skills
- handwriting
- reading
Music based sound stimulation programs find their origins in the work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis, a French ear, nose and throat specialist. In the 1950’s Dr. Tomatis developed the first auditory training program called the Tomatis Method. Generally Tomatis’s principles and theories provide the foundation for other auditory stimulation programs.
Some of the principles and theories include:
- There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is the passive reception of sound. Listening is an active process that involves motivation, intention, and the ability to dampen background sounds while focusing on essential sounds during a conversation.
- Sound training cannot change hearing but it can improve functional listening.
- The voice can only produce what the ear can hear, known as the “Tomatis Effect.” Tomatis found that when the ability to discriminate frequencies was restored to an individual, the voice was able to reproduce them.
- Processing of language is based on listening.
- The desire to communicate begins with listening.
There is an intimate anatomical and functional relationship between the auditory and vestibular systems. Both of these sensory systems are located within the ear. The cochlea forms one part of the inner ear and is related to sound perception. The vestibule of the vestibular system is also located in the inner ear. This system is a powerful integrator that interacts with all other sensory systems. It detects head movement in relation to gravity impacting balance, adjusting postural tone and bilateral coordination. Dr. Tomatis discussed the concept of these two systems sharing one role: the perception of movement. The vestibular system perceives the slower movements (vibrations) of the body and the cochlear perceives the faster oscillatory movements (vibrations), those that we can’t see, but those we can hear. The electrical energy that is produced by sound “charges” the cortical areas of the brain. High frequencies facilitate attention, concentration, and memory. Low frequencies stimulate the vestibular system improving muscle tone balance and bilateral coordination.
The Listening Program
The Listening Program’s psycho acoustically modified classical music is designed to stimulate or “exercise” the different functions of the auditory processing system. This enables the brain to better receive, process, store and utilize the valuable information provided through the varied soundscapes in our lives such as music, language and the environment in which we live. Certain classical music, like that of Mozart, Haydn and Vivaldi, has specific structure, producing sound waves in organized patterns. Within these patterns are vital elements including time, frequency and volume. When listening to music, the ear is receiving the musical sound waves—waves that arrive in different frequencies, measured in Hertz. These frequencies stimulate the brain, and thus affect different functions of the mind and body.
